Dolmii Remeliik

Professor Shelley Rodrigo

ENH 241

June 30, 2007

A Reflection on the Enlightenment Period

            The Enlightenment period is also known as the Age of Reason. Its main focus is politics and religion. One of the main concerns during the enlightenment period is America’s independence from European influence. This concern is evident in Thomas Paine’s writing, John Adam’s politics, and other writers and thinkers. Therefore, the enlightenment period hosts the era of the Declaration of Independence. In addition, enlightenment writers and thinkers focused on the achievement of liberty, justice, and equality for all.

            The enlightenment period is quite different in its approach to understanding as compared to the Puritanism and Romantic approach. Puritans strongly believed in the effectiveness and influence of God on the world, their lives, and therefore, in their writings. The Puritans interpreted all things as symbols with deeper spiritual meanings.

The Romantic period is time of imagination and also of spiritual meaning. In contrast to the enlightenment period, romantic literature praised imagination over reason, emotions over logic, and intuition over science. The ‘critique of slavery’ period is a period that dealt with extreme suffering and inhumanity compared to the other periods. Literature, during this era, is primarily based on the abolitionist movement.

            However, all literary period—Puritanism, Enlightenment, Romantic, Transcendentalism, and the Critique of Slavery—share common principles and goals. Each period relate to one another. For example, political and social causes, as well as abolitionist movements, became dominant themes and subject matters on romantic writings. Also, the ideals of the enlightenment period are as much the ideals of the writers (and slaves) of the slavery period.

            Understanding the enlightenment period broadens the understanding of all four literary periods. Each period or all periods, somehow, has had an influence over one another. In understanding the literary themes, the enlightenment period is the period of the American Dream, a dream of independence, liberty, justice and equality. There is also much diversity as the country had once been colonized by the Americans and Europeans.

            If I had to write about one of the period’s authors, I would have liked to write about Benjamin Franklin and Phillis Wheatley. Franklin because of his political views, his intellect, being a man of science, his perfected writings (which he realized would best deliver his ideas), and his unselfish ways (evident in his self-help book, Poor Richard’s Almanac). Finally, Wheatley because of her remarkable talent in writing and her focus on religion and morals in her poetry. Her poetry would help me understand the religious aspect of the enlightenment period while Franklin’s book titled Poor Richard’s Almanac, would help me understand the rationality aspect of the enlightenment period, and hopefully enable me to learn about the political aspect as well.